1. Field
The exemplary embodiments generally relate to transportation of items, more particularly, to the automated transportation of items between multiple points.
2. Brief Description of Related Developments
Generally, conventional large scale automated distribution centers that fulfill orders including one or more items (where each item is called an “each” and the picking process of an “each” is referred to as an “each pick”) have a customized storage structures in which automated guided vehicles operate. These customized storage structures are generally expensive, require lengthy installation times and are not easily changed or moved once constructed. In addition, the automated guided vehicles operating within the customized storage structures are generally constrained by the walls or other structure of the customized storage structure. As may be realized, the automated guided vehicles pick cases of items from storage locations of the customized storage structure, as specified in an order, and bring the picked items, as needed, to picking stations where a human picker grabs the required number of items from the cases carried by the automated guided vehicles for fulfilling the order. The automated guided vehicles then return the cases of items to the storage locations of the customized storage structure.
Generally there are many conventional automated transportation and storage systems that utilize motorized autonomous transport vehicles to transport products between two or more locations in a warehouse. However, those vehicles may not be fully autonomous in the sense that the customized storage structure contains the automated guided vehicles from leaving the customized storage structure, provides mechanical or other means (e.g. lines on the floor, etc.) of simplifying and/or constraining vehicle motion to one certain areas/directions, and provides alignment between the automated guided vehicle and a product container to make picking/placing of the product container reliable. Those vehicles also may not be safe enough to operate in the presence of humans and/or other equipment, requiring a structure to contain the vehicles or a defined “robot only” area of operation that is away from humans and/or other equipment, decreasing flexibility, efficiency and ease of maintainability/serviceability of the system. As noted above, a customized storage structure that provides these features may be cost prohibitive and may prevent distribution systems from adopting a large scale automated transportation/picking system. These conventional systems may also preclude workers from fulfilling orders using traditional picker-to-goods methods in the same space occupied by the automated guided vehicles in order to best optimize the system for order fulfillment efficiency.
It would be advantageous to have a low cost, retrofitable automated transportation system for transferring items between multiple locations in a distribution center that also allows, if desired, for simultaneous picker-to-goods methods in the same space as the automated transportation system.